Best View in Brooklyn

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

What started as a small hobby during my son's nap-time has become something to which I've become very attached. Doing this blog has helped me to learn so much more about Sunset Park than I would have known just from living here.

I hope that the posts I've put up have been informative and helpful to residents of Sunset Park, and I sincerely wish for more information outlets to develop for this neighborhood. While The Brooklyn Eagle often gives time to events and news, we rarely get mentioned in The Brooklyn Paper (still no crime blotter for us?) or other more major papers unless it has to do with violence or prostitution. Even then, we're often ignored. Sunset Park Chronicled, a recent blog started by a CUNY journalism student, is the only place I've found news about the Thanksgiving shooting murder.

Anyway, hopefully there will be new blogs to disseminate things like library events, park clean-ups, music in the Rec Center, summer events sponsored by The Friends of Sunset Park, food and toy drives by CB 7 (collecting toys right now!), and other positive developments. For example, the Friends of Sunset Park and the Rec Center staff are putting on a tree lighting ceremony on Friday night (Read more here). Check out the links on the right side for more Sunset Park weblogs.

In the meantime, I'm leaving the site up so that it can be searched for various tidbits of information. Thank you so much to the people who have been helpful and supportive in keeping up this amazing hobby. It has been a pleasure.

Almost a year and nine months ago, I started Best View in Brooklyn with this post about wanting a stop sign on my block. That post came about eight months after I helped collect signatures for the Friends of Sunset Park's petition to have traffic calming measures installed on 41st and 44th Streets at 6th Avenue, two heavily used entrances to Sunset Park itself. An on-line petition was also created to collect signatures for a stop sign and/or other traffic calming. Now, two and a half years after those initial (at least to me) petitions, there's still nothing but speeding cars, fearful street crossers, and disgruntled residents - some of whom have been hit or come too close to being hit by cars at that intersection.

Monday, November 30, 2009

These days, a lot of people who thought they'd never need assistance, do. McBrooklyn has the information and links on how to apply for food stamps here.

And if you're fortunate enough to not worry about your next meal, consider donating cash or food to one of Sunset Park's food pantries. They're doing a great job, but they really need some support.

United Methodist (47th and 4th) provided a Thanksgiving meal to many people, and their pantry line is always very long on Thursdays. I met the pastor there last week, and he's a really great guy. Check out this link from May for more information.

Bet you didn't know there were only two side streets that trucks are supposed to take if they don't have a local delivery. Here on 44th Street, it sure seems like we've got one of the truck routes based on the number of trucks that go barreling up the hill. (I know, how do they barrel UP the hill? But they do!)

Sunday, November 29, 2009

The What You See in Sunset Park idea has been taken over by another blog: Sunset Park Stills. It's off to a fantastic and very interesting start. The blog author is finding photos to put up on the blog in many places. If you want your Sunset Park photos to get noticed and published, add them to various groups on Flickr: